Roman Abramovich has a blonde wife, beautiful children, a multi-billion fortune, homes from Siberia to Sussex and, now, Chelsea football club. Peter Conradi and William Lewis investigate a mysterious mogul

The helicopter carrying Roman Abramovich, the second richest man in Russia and aspirant tsar of Chelsea football club, was swooping over the Thames when a crumbling football stadium suddenly loomed into sight below.

“Are we really buying that s---?” he asked his aides in horror.

It was only after he arrived at Chelsea’s multi-million-pound headquarters that he discovered he had seen Craven Cottage, the dilapidated home of his new neighbours Fulham, owned by another foreign tycoon, Mohamed al-Fayed.

The next day a relieved Abramovich met Ken Bates, Chelsea’s 71-year-old chairman, at the Dorchester hotel to seal a deal that gave the young Russian billionaire one of the jewels of English football for £140m.

This was little more than loose change to a man whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine, the bible of the super rich, as nearly £3.5 billion.